Lunch with: Tim Black

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/12/2011 (5261 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What drew you to the Prairies?

It was an opportunity to come and work for a bigger company and head west again. We’d tried the eastern thing, but family is in B.C. still, so we wanted to be a little closer to home.

You said we. You’re married?

Been married for many, many years. My wife’s name is Kathy, and we have two wonderful children — we have Gillian, who was born in Victoria, and she’s now 12, and Evan, who was born in Owen Sound, so he’s just turning eight this year.

Before we started this interview, we were talking about technology. And you said the iPhone has an app, basically a magnifier, for “people like me.” I think it’s cool you don’t hesitate to talk about your visual impairment.

I am legally blind. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I have 10 per cent vision in my left eye, none in my right eye. I’ve been this way my entire life. My mom and dad didn’t want to send me to a boarding school called Jericho Hill, which was in Vancouver, where I would have had to go when I was six. So I was the very first visually-impaired-slash-blind-person to go through the regular school system in Victoria back in the ’70s. I kind of broke the doors down for everybody else who came after me.

I guess if you’ve been that way since birth, you can’t miss what you haven’t had. But were you just ultra-determined to break down the barriers?

My mom and dad raised me as a normal kid. I have an older sister, and we were just a regular family. And I credit Mom and Dad, because if that hadn’t been the case, I don’t think I would be the person I’ve turned out to be. But that being said, there were a lot of challenges.

Were you picked on as a kid?

Sure. You’re the odd duck out. Kids still tease each other today, but if you were somebody with a disability back in the ’70s and ’80s, yeah — you were teased. Integration now is so much better, and technology is so much better now for anybody with any kind of disability. So I’m thinking life has, hopefully, gotten a whole lot better for those kids than it was back in my day.

Did you find resistance on the part of employers to even entertain the notion of having someone who was legally blind on their staff?

My first job was working in a McDonald’s — seven years of McDonald’s. It was owned by a man named Sandy Grant, and he knew my dad, so I was hired to work in the lobby. I started there and worked my way through the entire store and I actually became a manager. So I was the very first visually impaired McDonald’s manager. And a side note — that’s where I met my wife. We were actually engaged in McDonald’s — that’s where I popped the question.

In terms of radio station people, was there any reluctance on their part to hire someone with visual impairment?

No. I wanted to do this since I was 10 years old, because my dad worked in advertising for a couple of years for a radio station, CFAX, in Victoria. When I met the DJs there, I thought, ‘Hmm. I kind of like this idea of talking behind a microphone.’ So I got to know the announcers — there was a guy, Barry Bowman, who was kind of a mentor for me. He let me come into his show and help him, so I learned it that way.

And in Grade 8, I thought, ‘You know what? This is really cool. I’m going to start a radio station in the school.’ And I did. It ran for Grade 8, 9 and 10. It was a lunchtime request show — kids would give their requests, I’d put it together, take it home, produce it at home, bring it to school and play it over the PA system.

And when I decided this was the career path I really wanted to follow, I applied for BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology). And I was rejected because of my vision — they said they’d had bad experiences with blind people who’d come before me. So that made me more determined to get the job myself. And I did — right out of high school.

Has technology eased your load in the last few years?

For being on air, the computer has made life easier because everything’s on the screen. People are always amazed when they come into the studio and watch me do what I do and they try to figure out how I’m doing it. And I still have the same answer: ‘I have no idea how I do it.’

It’s the same thing as I ride a bike to work. My mother, to this day, still can’t figure out how that happens.

You do it on the roadways, right? And how do you do that with only 10 per cent vision in one eye?

(pause) Very carefully! (laugh) You know what? I’ve been riding a bike since I was a kid. I used to ride my bike to school. I’ve ridden all over Victoria, and I’ve ridden here in Brandon. I’ve just done it. I’ve always done it. I’ve never treated myself — and I don’t want people to treat me — as somebody who has a visual impairment or a handicap, quote-unquote.

I AM legally blind, as I said — I do have a white cane, but I don’t use it unless I’m travelling — I legally have to have it for that. But you just have to plug through with life. You’ve got to take every challenge that’s there and go for it.

What is it about radio that you love?

I love the fact that, every morning, my challenge is to make somebody smile. I want to make sure your day is starting off right.

What do you think is your main personal trait or characteristic?

I hate to sound cheesy, but it’s that I am who I am. I’m a down-to-earth guy. I’m one of those people that, when you meet stars and you meet celebrities, I never get star-struck, because I know they’re just regular people as well. I’m a normal human being.